You Got Skillz!

Word cloud with the largest words being communication, technical proficiency, self-motivation, time management, collaboration and adaptability

Can you guess where this word cloud came from? (No scrolling down and cheating 😉)

If you guessed these are the skills required to work in journalism (that’s what I would have thought as a former TV News person), guess again…

I used my old pal Google and pulled text from more than a dozen articles on skills employers are looking for in their remote employees (articles list at the bottom of this post).

It maps PERFECTLY onto the skills enhanced during years spent as a journalist!

The connection between what is done in journalism and these skills may seem obvious to journalists. But for a future employer, you need to make the connections. Sure, they assume that you must be a strong communicator.

But they probably don’t know:

🔸 The time management required to turnaround a story in time for a 5pm live shot or a newspaper publication deadline.

🔸The emotional intelligence required to interview someone on the worst day of their life.

🔸The organization skills required to produce an entire newscast or radio show.

🔸The technical proficiency required to create a weather forecast or to edit a video for a newscast and then share it on social media.

🔸The self-motivation required to research and pitch story ideas day after day.

And the list goes on. It’s up to you to use those storytelling skills you’ve honed to tell your own story and connect the dots for a potential employer.

Ask yourself, what news day from my journalism career is the perfect example of one of the skills from the word cloud? Then start writing (or record yourself) and tell the story of that day. What’s the beginning, middle and end? Who are the characters and what is the setting? What conflict did you encounter and how was it resolved?

If you’re currently in (or previously worked in) TV News and would like help getting started with this, I invite you to join me for a virtual workshop!

On Monday, May 20th at 10am ET I’m leading “How TV News Pros Can Land a Remote Job“.

We’ll spend an hour crafting these stories and supporting each other through this process. You’ll leave with a stronger cover letter and increased confidence for your future interviews.

Registration is limited to 20 participants so we can truly focus on each person’s expertise.

But there’s more!

Here’s a bonus word cloud with even more words (I just decided to use the simpler one). And if you’re curious where this list came from, the list of the articles I used is below that.

But there’s more!

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